All About Bishop Tengatenga

On Friday May 8, 2009, the Anglican Consultative Council, one of the four instruments of the Anglican Communion, broke into enthusiastic applause with the announcement that the Rt. Rev. James Tengatenga was elected to chair the Council. Bishop Tengatenga was one of four candidates and has a wide variety of experience in the Communion, most recently as a member of the Design Group for the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

After graduating from Southwest, the couple returned to Malawi where Bishop Tengatenga was ordained a priest. In addition to parish ministry, he also trained chaplains and worked with youth. In 1989 he studied in England and then continued in parish ministry until joining the faculty of ZombaTheologicalCollege and later the University of Malawi in the department of theology and religious studies. He was consecrated bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Southern Malawi in 1998.

The bishop has been involved in HIV/AIDS ministry as a member of the Malawi National AIDS Commission, which coordinates the national response to HIV and AIDS. He has been involved in many ecumenical activities in the country and has chaired the Malawi Council of Churches. Bishop Tengatenga has also worked in mediation among political parties in Malawi. During the 2004 elections he chaired a committee of church leaders to facilitate multi-party talks that led to the Mgwirizano Coalition.

Within the worldwide Anglican Communion Bishop Tengatenga is the a member of the Anglican Consultative Council and of the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and the Primates Meeting of the Anglican Communion. He represents the ACC on the Board of St. George's College, Jerusalem, and is a member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations. Bishop Tengatenga is a member of the International Board of SOMA (Sharing of Ministries Abroad).

He has earned a Ph.D in Church and State Relations from the University of Malawi, and has been honored with doctorate degrees from the Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, and General Theological Seminary in New York.